Ãngel MartÃn Municio: the metaphor of knowledge
Ver en CastellanoJesús Castañón Rodríguez
Ángel Martín Municio, professor and member of the Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales and the Real Academia Española, passed away on November 23rd, 2002. Born in 1923 in the little town of Haro (La Rioja, Spain), Municio obtained a PhD in Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences and accomplished an outstanding academic career in Germany, Spain, The Netherlands and the UK, both in the scientific and the research fields.
He held the positions of Director at the Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales and Vice Director at the Real Academia Española.
Among his contributions to the study of the language, it is important to mention the technological updating accomplished by the Real Academia Española under his guidance, as well as his efforts to establish a correlation among computational linguistics applied to lexical projects, scientific terminology and technical-scientific vocabulary. He was a defender of the principle that Science and Language are not mutually exclusive but rather complement each other, as both need creativity and metaphors to define knowledge with accuracy and clarity.
Sports vocabulary champion
His linguistic collaboration within the sports circles was active and consistent, and mainly accomplished through the incorporation of new terms which took place during the 90’s. The soccer related term vaselina was by far the most popular of his creations, proposed for and included in the 21st edition of the Dictionary of Spanish Language.
The passing of Martin Municio represents the loss of a scientist, a communicator and a soccer fan who loved to follow this sport through the radio.
Bibliographic references
FERNÁNDEZ DEL MORAL, Javier: "Ángel Martín Municio, divulgador", ABC, Madrid, November 30th, 2002.
LEÓN-SOTELO, Trinidad de: "Muere a los 78 años Ángel Martín Municio, la voz de la ciencia en la Academia Española", ABC, Madrid, 24 de noviembre de 2002.
ROSELL, María del Mar: "La lengua gana por goleada", Diario 16, Madrid, March 16th, 1995.